


Nightmares

by chii



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-26
Updated: 2012-03-26
Packaged: 2017-11-02 13:23:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chii/pseuds/chii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ Near-End S2 Spoilers ] He’s learned how to handle her over the years, when to talk and when to be quiet, and she’s grateful for it, just breathing, sharp and shallow, her hands skittering over his skin like a nervous habit, sweeping over broad shoulders and the nape of his neck and through his hair, shuddering out a little noise when it’s all over and she realizes that it was for sure a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares

She’s not stupid. She’s heard everyone murmuring, talking about how there’s no way, there’s just no way, not for someone to come back from that. Everyone keeps looking at her, those sad, pitying little looks that she finds she hates the more and more aware of them she becomes, because she doesn’t want to have pity. She doesn’t want people to look at her like that at all, she just wants Paul fixed.   
  
It’s late enough now where no one will miss her, and she pushes back the glass from her sleeping pod, creeping out around the room, and into the main one, pressing tight along the wall until she reaches the room he’s in, pushing the key-card against the slot to gain access, sliding into the room and closing it. The room is filled with a steady, low hum from the equipment, and the floor is cold-- hell, the whole room is cold, and the nurse inside her can’t stand it, he should be warm.   
  
Echo creeps through the room, snagging a throw blanket from the couch and accesses that part of her, the nurse part, that knows which wires and things to avoid, climbing up into the bed with him, careful. It’s a tight squeeze, but she presses between his shoulder and side and the bed, and tugs the blanket over the both of them, at least for a little while, the steady lull of his breathing (machine induced, but she forces herself not to think about that) enough to help her sleep.  
  
Echo wakes up to silence, the machines gone quiet, the steady beep of the heart monitor, the entire house seemingly gone silent. She can’t make her body work, though, fingers and toes twitching, fighting, but it’s not working, it’s not _working_ , she can’t move.  Echo makes a faint noise, almost a croak, and finally manages to open her eyes, jerking her chin, feeling plastic covering her face and cold, slick not-water pooling at her hands and feet, slowly seeping up her body.   
  
_“ Paul\--” _  
  
Her hands still don’t work, but she tries anyway, fighting back, trying to get some part of her body to respond, only to realize he’s not there.   
  
“ _Paul_? ”  
  
The liquid pumps in faster, and she makes a high, terrified noise in the back of her throat, twitching, only to see the shadow looming over her, and then relief swamps her. _paul came back he’s fine he’s not in the--_  
  
“This is the only place we have for defective dolls, Echo.”   
_  
no no no no that’s not him it can’t be him he’s-_  
  
Paul draws the plastic sheeting further up her body, and plugs her into the machine ignoring the noises she’s making, the protests that no, no she’s awake don’t do this to her please don’t.   
  
_i need to wake up please let me wake up._  
  
“Sweet dreams.”   
  
Echo screams, but there isn’t any sound produced, all of it swallowed by the plastic and the machines and the sudden darkness of the room as he just leaves her there, alone, and--   
_  
“ Echo!” _  
  
Echo jerks awake, as much as she’s able to, with her wrists pinned down and a solid weight on her stomach-- Paul’s hands, she realizes after a moment, breathing sharp and uneven, twisting against him. Part of her is irritated that he knows how this works this well, that he knows it’s safest to hold her back when she wakes up like this, that it’ll keep back the black eye from the last time he tried to wake her up.   
  
“There you go, s’just us,” Paul murmurs, slowly releasing her hands, the hand on her stomach just circling around her as he presses in close again, resting his cheek on her shoulder, quiet.  
  
He’s learned how to handle her over the years, when to talk and when to be quiet, and she’s grateful for it, just breathing, sharp and shallow, her hands skittering over his skin like a nervous habit, sweeping over broad shoulders and the nape of his neck and through his hair, shuddering out a little noise when it’s all over and she realizes that it was for sure a dream.   
  
“How long?”   
  
“Few hours. Four? Don’t really want to grab the clock and find out.” Paul’s lips twitch up, something she feels against her shoulder, and one arm winds tight around him despite herself. “We’ll be fine.”   
_  
you can’t promise. _  
  
She hates, sometimes, how he knows her well enough to know that the whole reason she has those nightmares, the whole reason she gets like this is because of the fears and worries that things won’t go right today. That they’ll lose someone else, that every risk they take is going to be too risky and they’ll fail and Rossum will win.   
  
“Echo. Was it a nightmare?”   
  
Paul shifts, the bed creaking under their combined weight, and he settles over her with a quiet noise, kissing her cheek, and then her jaw, his hand smoothing along her side.   
  
“I know you’re worried.”   
  
“What. You aren’t?” Echo asks, sharper than she means to, gritting her teeth when she realizes it, just shaking her head. Of course he is. He considers them family just as much as she ever has, and much as she hates to admit it, they work well together. They always have, and if anyone can protect the others from Rossum-- if anyone can stop Rossum, it’ll be them.   
  
Paul leans in, pressing his forehead against hers, and it’s not quite a kiss, but it’s that kind of stupidly sweet gesture that makes half of her personalities go all warm and stupid and the other half either amused or mildly irritated. Echo, though, it makes Echo shiver, hands curling in his hair, and she just holds him there for a moment. It’s been years since anything happened, going on two now, really, because they’re constantly on the run, constantly trying to find something else, another way, another hiding spot, another _anything_ , to stop Rossum.   
  
“We’ve still got a few hours,” Echo murmurs finally, shifting under him, her legs sliding up around his waist, blankets sliding off of his hips as she tilts her head and steals a quick kiss. “Better make it fast. I want to go back to sleep before we roll out.”   
  
For a moment, she thinks he’ll object. He’s no more stupid than she is, and he knows when he’s being used, he knows when he’s being distracted by her because he knows her the best. This isn’t exactly subtle, not really. She also knows he’ll take what she gives him, and maybe that’s...sad, but it’s something all the same.   
  
For all that they hardly ever do this, it doesn’t take long to get her worked up, squirming under him with each press of his fingers between her thighs, his mouth leaving marks against her throat, bruises here and there that she won’t mind, never minds, because if they die in the morning then it’s not the worst thing to have happened, is it?   
  
“Sometime,” Paul starts, and she tenses just because she knows where this is going, helping him shove his pants off and then kissing him hard and fast, gasping when he rolls them, slamming her back down on the bed and kissing her just as hard, hitting all the things she likes. “Stop-- damnit, Echo, stop that, let me-- _ahhh_ \--”   
  
Her hand circles tighter around his cock, and she gives him an entirely innocent look, thumb sweeping over the head of his cock, smearing the wetness there as he looks down at her, eyes dark, breathing unevenly. He’s always held back, to a point, but she loves it when he gets like that, all quiet intensity and need.   
  
“Come on, only have a few hours,” she reminds quietly, and spreads her legs for him, letting him run his hands up her thighs and push her knees back to her shoulders, the bed creaking under them as he shifts, lining up and then sliding in, and she knows he’s watching everything, the way she arches, the way her lips part when she moans, every little reaction that he files away for later.   
  
They start with her on her back, sharing kisses between each thrust, moans swallowed up between them, and end with her on her stomach, face buried in the bed, one of his hands curled tight in her hair, pulling her back into each thrust while she muffles her moans into the sheets and pillows.   
  
She’s come twice already and a third time just doesn’t seem possible, but thankfully he’s winding down too, pressing kisses to her shoulders, rhythm stuttering the closer he gets until he pushes in as far as he can, kissing the nape of her neck and coming with little jerks of his hips while she strokes her fingers over his arm, kissing his knuckles and then his wrist, slowly relaxing.   
  
Post-sex is always the best and worst, really-- it’s messy and sweaty and she always hates it, but the loose, lazy feeling that comes from orgasm is always welcome, truth be told.   
  
Paul eases out of her after a moment, and she rolls over, onto her back only to find the weight of him on her chest, a laugh startled out of her despite herself as he buries his face between her breasts with a pleased little noise. “We should get up,” she says just to say it, knowing she doesn’t sound convincing, and she can tell he doesn’t think so either, when he grins against the swell of a breast like that, making a disgruntled noise in objection. “Later. Should get up later. When I don’t have four hundred pounds of FBI agent on me.”   
  
_“ Four hundred_ _?_ ” he demands, sounding properly scandalized by the idea, bracing himself up on one arm, and the cot creaks again, a little shudder of the wood frame that makes his eyes go wide and her lips twitch up, biting back a snicker. “Please, this is your fault.”   
  
“ _Mine_?” Echo shoves at his shoulder with a laugh despite herself, half startled at the sound of it, and from the way he looks, he’s just as surprised. Laughter is a rare enough thing, but it’s even more rare from her. “I-- just shut up, buddy, and roll off, you’re crushing me.”   
  
Paul grins as he obeys, rolling to the side and taking her with him, spooning up behind her with a pleased little noise, snuggling into her with all the affection that she knows they shouldn’t show each other but can’t quite stop herself from. They might die tomorrow. They might end up dead and she could lose him or vice versa, and they deserve this. They do.   
  
“So when we win,” he murmurs into her ear, hand sliding up, cupping a breast less sexual and more just affectionately, smoothing over bare skin. “I want a house. A real one.”   
  
She doesn’t want to play this game ( except she does ) because she knows that it can’t turn out like that. It can’t go that well, there’s just no way.   
  
“And a cat.”   
  
_“ No_ _._ ” Paul almost laughs against her, sliding his hand up over her arm, and to her wrist, then her hand, curling their fingers together and just looking at how much larger his hand is than hers. “No, a dog.”   
  
( don’t play this game you know it won’t-- )  
  
( shut up. )   
  
“What’s wrong with cats? Cats are nice.”   
  
Multiple personalities of hers had had cats, and she loved them. Granted, dogs were just as good, but she’s curious about why he’s saying no to that of all things.   
  
“I only need one fickle thing in my life, two would just drive me crazy.”   
  
She knows him well enough not to get offended-- instead, a laugh bubbles up despite herself, and she curls into him, letting him settle their hands around her waist, just enjoying the sensation of being wrapped up and the closest to safe they get, with all the butchers around.   
  
It’s all comfortable silence from that point on, listening to the sounds outside, the creak of the house, the wind, Paul’s steady, even breathing as he falls back asleep and she stays awake the rest of the night, facing the doorway to be the first one who takes anything that comes through that door, reaching out to grab the gun on the night stand, sliding it under the pillow and just watching the doorway while he sleeps, as ready as she’ll ever be for what tomorrow brings.


End file.
